Irina Puryshinskaja

Irina Puryshinskaja was born in Moscow and studied there at the Tschaikowsky Conservatory under Prof. G. Axelrod and gained distinctions in chamber music, song interpretation and piano solo.

Continuing her studies in Germany, she took her concert examinations in piano solo at the Music College of Cologne under Prof. Karin Merle as well as in song arrangement under Prof. Hartmut Höll at the Music College of Karlsruhe.

Solo and chamber concerts followed as well as Lied recitals in Germany (including at the Liederhalle Stuttgart, Cologne Philharmonie, Gasteig Munich, the Ruhr Piano Festival, Bad Kissingen Summer Festival), Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. She has been on tour through the former Soviet Union, in the Middle East and China.

She has participated in numerous radio recordings for MDR, Deutschlandfunk, SWR and WDR.

In 1996 she received a special prize for the best Lied pianist at the XII International Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau. In the same year she was awarded second prize at the "Concorso Pianistico Internazionale Citta di Senigallia" in Italy.

In 2000 she gained third place at the IV International Competition "Franz Schubert and the Music of the Modernists" in Graz for Lied Duet and Piano, a special prize for the best interpretation of Schubert's works (Lied), and a special prize for the best piano achievement (Blüthner Concert Grand).

She was a prize-winner at the following International competitions: Richard Strauss in Stuttgart, Fransisco Vinas in Barcelona, Mozart and Belcanto in Passau, Debut de Meran in Meran, UNISA in Pretoria.

Since February 2000 she has been Professor for Piano as Main Subject at the state conservatory of Vorarlberg, Austria.

In 2006 together with the tenor Bernhard Berchtold she made a recording of the complete Franz Schubert cycles for the CD label AVI-Music under the auspices of the Ruhr Piano Festival.